Hi Reader, I took a cooking class in Koh Samui (Thailand) last November. My teacher was from Isan, but she'd learned paste-making from living in Northern Thailand — where khao soi (aka Thai curry noodle soup) comes from. She taught me two things I've never forgotten. Don't shake the coconut milk can! If you're surprised, I was too. But you basically scoop the thick cream off the top and use it to fry the paste (the same way ghee works in Indian cooking) and the fat splits in the heat and...

Hi Reader, Next time you’re at the store, buy an extra lemon and throw it in the freezer. Whole. Don’t cut it, don’t zest it, just freeze it. Then grate the entire thing — peel, pith, all of it — straight into hot butter - for the best lemon butter pasta of your life. What comes off the microplane is this fine, aromatic fluff that dissolves into the sauce immediately. It smells like someone turned the lemon volume up to eleven. Freezing ruptures the cells in the peel and releases the...

Hi Reader, Next Sunday, we're hosting what I'm calling a "birthday-slash-Easter brunch" because baby M is turning two and I refused to do two separate events (lol). So we're just doing one very chaotic, very delicious thing and calling it a celebration. If you're hosting Easter — or any spring brunch, because honestly, this menu works any Sunday in April — I put together every recipe worth making in one place. Think of this as a menu to pick from, not a to-do list. Take what you need, leave...